Contrary to what you might believe, being a social media influencer can be a fulfilling and rewarding career. While it certainly has its ups and downs, it’s a creative, challenging job that will give you lots to do. One thing’s for sure when it comes to social media influencers: they don’t have it easy, whatever you might have heard. Even breaking into the “influencer industry” can be difficult, so you’re going to need all the help you can get if you’re interested in this career trajectory. Here’s how to start off your career as a social media influencer.
Build a social media presence
It might sound obvious, but the first thing you’ll need if you want to be an influencer is a robust social media presence. That means creating and maintaining profiles on all the major platforms: Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Twitter, and any others you care to mention. Of course, it’s not easy to begin building followings on these platforms. That’s why many turn to sites like https://freetikfollowers.com/ to help them gain organic followers, especially on platforms like TikTok, which can be extremely competitive at the best of times.
Find your market
Every influencer has a specific niche to which they cater. There are very few influencers who can make content for everyone; even prestigious TikTokers like Charli D’Amelio won’t be able to appeal to everyone on the app. To find your niche, think carefully about your skillset and what kind of content you enjoy creating. What sort of person usually likes to watch videos or read about that kind of content? Even though you’re not a business (yet), it can help to do some market research in this area to give you a better idea of who you’re aiming at.
Start creating content
It can be easy to get bogged down in the planning stages of becoming an influencer, to the point that you forget to actually start your career. The journey of a thousand miles starts with a single step, so the best way to begin your influencer career journey is simply to make some content! Send that first tweet, create that first Instagram story, or make that first TikTok video. Initially, you might not get many likes. That’s normal; you haven’t built a profile yet, so people don’t know who you are. However, when you start gaining traction, people can come back and watch the video that started it all!
Unify and link your profiles
Most social media platforms have built-in ways to link your accounts to other apps. Even if this isn’t possible, there are always ways to create posts on multiple platforms at once, so it’s worth unifying your accounts. This means creating consistent branding between accounts; your name, profile picture, and bio should be similar on each app, even if they’re not exactly the same. You should pay attention to each app’s unique quirks while still maintaining consistency. This way, people can easily find you on other social media platforms if they discover you elsewhere.
Engage, engage, engage
You’ll often hear social media gurus and marketers tell you that engagement is key. They’re not wrong. It’s important to reach out to followers who decide to engage with your content. While many people may see what you’ve made and passively interact with it by liking it or reacting to it, those who comment are true followers in the making. They might have important feedback or insight into your content that you can take on board. Of course, you don’t need to engage with people who are being needlessly negative or cruel. Still, make sure you take the time to find comments that are genuine.
Seek out brands, don’t wait
Influencers primarily make money through partnerships with brands. Whether it’s affiliate advertising or content they create directly in collaboration with a brand, this is how influencers create a career in the world of social media. That’s why you need to make sure you’re always on the lookout for brands with which you can collaborate. Make sure they adhere to your core values; your audience isn’t going to like it if you work with a brand that isn’t relevant to their, or your, interests. Brands will eventually start reaching out to you, but in the early days, it’s up to you to be proactive.
Know your trends
It’s one thing to create content you love, but it’s quite another to create content that will gain popularity on social media. To do this, you’ll need to keep an eye on what’s currently trending. Certain topics will fade in and out of popularity; sometimes they’re based on popular culture or current events, but trends are often started by celebrities. Dances, lip-sync contests, and image challenges are all often popular, so it’s worth keeping an eye on trending topics to see what you should do next. You should make sure your content is hitting at least some of these trends.
Make a portfolio
If you’re serious about becoming an influencer, you need to make a portfolio. Also called a media kit, this is a way for brands to know who you are and what you’re about in a nutshell. Think of it as your influencer version of a CV; you give it out to potential collaborators in order to build a relationship. It’s important to make your media kit look snazzy and attention-grabbing, so if you need to work with a professional graphic designer, then this is definitely something to consider. You won’t make it far in the world of social media influencers without a media kit!
There’s no golden rule when it comes to being an influencer. Some people never achieve success despite putting in months of hard work, while others manage to score a fluke viral hit without having been on the scene for very long at all. If you follow the tenets above, though, you’ll stand a much better chance of making it as an influencer!